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Introduction

The overall fundamental aim of this wiki is establish if Knowledge Management (KM) is a ‘new trend in Management?’ The wiki will discuss various aspects of Knowledge management, from its history, to its implementation across various industries, sectors and organisations across the globe.
In a ever growing competitive climate, organisations are constantly seeking a competitive advantage over their rivals. In previous years one way of establishing a competitive advantage was taking the resource based view of the organisation (Barney, 1991). However, in this day more and more organisations are seeking to gain a competitive advantage through a knowledge based view.

Definition(s)

Firstly, it would be appropriate before beginning to define knowledge and also knowledge management. Knowledge is defined as a fluid mix of framed experience, values, contextual information, and expert insight that provides a framework for evaluating and incorporating new experiences and information (Davenport and Prusak, 1998). It is also worth highlighting that knowledge consists of two elements tacit and explicit (Polanyi 1966). Tacit knowledge refers to knowledge that is hard to codify, express and communicated explicitly. Instead, it is in the “mind of knowers”, and gained through experience, thinking, and learning. Explicit knowledge is expressed and communicated in formal and systematically, and it can be shared between individuals and collectively within and between organisations. For example in organisations explicit knowledge can be stored in data bases, whereas organisational norms, routines and practices are often tacit knowledge.

Therefore, Knowledge management is the systematic and apparent management of knowledge, which links to the process of knowledge creation, collection, organization, distribution and application. In knowledge management, converting the individual knowledge into collective knowledge is important to be used widely throughout the organization (Benlabsir, 2015) It refers to a multi-disciplinary approach to achieving organisational objectives by making the best use of knowledge.

History

Knowledge management roots begin in the mid 70’s with authors such as Drucker (1974) writing about the importance of knowledge workers and also the importance of knowledge as a resource to organisations. Nevertheless, Knowledge management emerged as scientific discipline in the early 1990’s (McInerney, 2002). However, as I have already stated at that point much of an organisations aim was to gain a competitive advantage through the use of the resource based view (RBV), however as a sort of branch off from the resource based view, Grant (1996) presented his research paper titled ‘Toward a Knowledge-Based theory of the firm’, now known as the (KBV). In his paper Grant discusses, at the time, the many differing theories of firm stating there is not one singular, multipurpose theory of the firm. He moves forward to discuss the new and emerging knowledge-based theory of the firm and how, like any other theory of the firms there must be clear foundations with a set of initial premises which form the basis for the development of propositions concerning the structure, behaviour, performance and existence of any firm. He identifies five foundations which are required in order to establish knowledge giving an organisation its competitive advantage;

1. Transferability – As with the resource based view, transefriability of knowledge is as important as the transfer of resources. With knowledge the importance lays with an organisations ability to transfer knowledge between firms but more crucially internally. Explicit knowledge is recognised by its communication; therefore the ease of communication is the fundamental property. Tacit knowledge is recognised through its application. Thus, if tacit knowledge cannot be codified and can only be seen through its application its transfer between people can be costly and uncertain.
2. Capacity for aggregation – The efficiency with which knowledge can be transferred depends upon knowledge’s potential for aggregation. At an organisational level, knowledge absorption depends upon the organisations ability to add new knowledge to existing knowledge. Efficiency of knowledge aggregation is enhanced when knowledge can be expressed in a common language. For example statistics is a good way of aggregating and expressing certain types of explicit knowledge.
3. Appropriability – Knowledge is a resource which is subject to uniquely complex problems regarding appropriabliy. Tacit knowledge is not directly appropriable because it cannot be directly transferred. Explicit knowledge also has issues in relation to appropriablity. As a public good anyone who acquires it can resell without losing it.
4. Specialisation in knowledge acquisition – Efficiency in knowledge production (i.e. knowledge creation, acquisition of existing knowledge and storage of knowledge) requires hat individuals specialise is certain areas of knowledge.
5. The knowledge requirements of production – As with all production the knowledge-based theory requires that the critical input in production and primary source of value is knowledge.

Through identifying these five foundations Grant also outlines the importance of several other factors, such as the true existence of the firm and the difficulties of becoming a truly knowledge based organisation. He also outlines the effect taking a knowledge based view has on the structure of an organisation such as the effects on the hierarchy and also the effects on the location of decision making.
Albeit, such work conducted by Drucker (1974) began to highlight the importance of knowledge within and to organisations by discussing the value of knowledge workers at an earlier period in time, Grant, however took a major step in identifying a truly knowledge-based view that organisations could adopt in an effort to become more competitive.

Why knowledge Management

Moving forward, it must be justified as to why organisations are employing knowledge management in to their practice. One clear reason is that knowledge is clearly recognised as an important resource for sustaining a competitive advantage and improving performance (Chan and Chau, 2006). Knowledge adds value to an organization through its contribution to products, processes and people, while knowledge management (KM) transforms information, data and intellectual assets into enduring value by identifying useful knowledge for management actions (Goh, 2006). We are also in the age of the Knowledge economy (Patil and Kant, 2014) the century in which organisations possess knowledge that enables them to improve their performance. Therefore, for organisations knowledge management consists of processes that facilitate the application of their organisational knowledge, in order to create better value and to increase and sustain a competitive advantage (Kannabiran, 2009). Furthermore, a study conducted by Pawlowsky and Schmid (2006) shows a strong positive relastionship between knowledge management (KM), innovation and performance. Also, knowledge management was found to have a positive impact on completion times, innovation, project success, operational efficiency (Oluikpe, Sohail, & Odhiambo, 2009).

There is little doubt as to why organisations are choosing to implement KM practices, considering the amount of benefits it possesses. Implementing KM enables an organization to learn from its corporate memory, share knowledge and identify competencies in order to become a forward thinking and learning organization (Patil and Kant, 2014). With such a fixation on acquiring a competitive advantage over the organisations competitors, knowledge is becoming a resource which is much sought after. Ensuring the organisations has the capability and capacity to facilitate knowledge creation, storage and implementation is increasingly paramount.

Processes in Knowledge Management

Throughout, there has been various mentions of organisations having to implement processes and practices in order to facilitate creating new knowledge, managing and implementing that knowledge. This next section seeks to give some examples of such processes and practices.
The first process is the SECI model designed by Nonaka and Konno (1998) which is designed to enable knowledge creation.
. The SECI model


Knowledge creation is a spiralling process of interactions between tacit and explicit knowledge (Nonaka, 1994). Thus, the interactions between explicit and tacit knowledge leads to knowledge creation which is the sole reason for the design of the SECI model. As you can the model is broken down into four categories and four stages (1) Socialization (2) Externalization (3) Combination (4) Internalization.

• Socialization – Socialization involves the sharing of tacit knowledge between individuals. The term socialization is used to emphasise that tacit knowledge is exchanged through joint activities rather than through written or verbal communication. In practice, then, socialization involves capturing knowledge through, for example, walking around the inside of an organisation or communicating directly with consumers and suppliers.
• Externalization – At the externalization stage, tacit knowledge gained from the socialization stage needs to be expressed and thus translated into a comprehensible form so it can be understood by others. Therefore, at the externalisation stage tacit knowledge must be converted in to explicit knowledge. This can be achieved through techniques such as turning an individual’s ideas or images in to words. Also translating the tacit knowledge of customers or experts into readily understandable forms. This may require delusive/inductive reasoning or creative inference (abduction).
• Combination – Combination involves the conversion of explicit knowledge in to more complex sets of explicit knowledge. For example there are three phase process in which this can be achieved
  • o Explicit knowledge has to be embodied into action and practice through collecting externalised knowledge such as public data from inside and outside of the organisation and then combining such data
  • o Transferring knowledge directly through presentation or meetings. This is when new knowledge is created by sharing the knowledge with employees
  • o Editing and processing of explicit knowledge makes it more usable

Within the combination process justification takes places and allows an organisation to take practical steps

• Internalization – The internalization stage is where the newly created knowledge is then converged into the organisations tacit knowledge. This can take place in two ways

1) Explicit knowledge has to be embodied into action and practice. For example such as training programs
2) The exlpciit knowledge can be embodied into action and practice through simulations by the doing process

Overall, the SECI model establishes a strong foundation in which tacit and explicit knowledge can be exchanged and managed to create new knowledge, which can then be implemented by organisations into new processes to achieve better performance or efficiency.
Another model which builds upon the SECI model is Boisot (1998) I-Space model

Boisots model differs from the SECI model because it introduces an extra dimension ‘abstraction’. The model emphasizes that knowledge can be generalized to different situations. This produces a richer scheme allowing the flow and transformation of knowledge to be analysed in greater detail.
Boisot proposes two key points

1) The more easily data can be structured and converted into information, the more diffusible it becomes
2) The less data that has been so structured requires a shared context for its diffusion, the more diffusible it becomes
As you can see the model is a three dimensional cube with the following dimensions

• From Codified – Uncodified
• From Abstract – Concrete
• From Undiffused – Diffused

The mode proposes a "Social Learning Cycle" (SLC) that uses the I-Space to model the dynamic flow of knowledge through a series of six phases:
1) Scanning: insights are gained from generally available (diffused) data
2) Problem-Solving: problems are solved giving structure and coherence to these insights (knowledge becomes 'codified')
3) Abstraction: the newly codified insights are generalized to a wide range of situations (knowledge becomes more 'abstract')
4) Diffusion: the new insights are shared with a target population in a codified and abstract form (knowledge becomes 'diffused')
5) Absorption: the newly codified insights are applied to a variety of situations producing new learning experiences (knowledge is absorbed and produces learnt behaviour and so becomes 'tacit')
6) Impacting: abstract knowledge becomes embedded in concrete practices, for example in artefacts, rules or behaviour patterns (knowledge becomes 'concrete'l

The proposed Social Learning Cycle (SLC) serves to link content, information, and knowledge management in a very effective way. The codification dimension is linked to categorisation and classification; the abstraction dimension is linked to knowledge creation, and the diffusion dimension is linked to information access and transfer. Another important conjecture of Boisot's model is that it considers organizations as living organisms. Their process of growing and developing knowledge assets within organizations is always changing. This means that organizations need to adopt a dynamic knowledge management strategy.

Overall, both models illustrate solid platforms from which organisations can use to understand how better to facilitate and manage knowledge creation and implementation. Both models also clearly outline a cycle in which this can be achieved, providing organisations with a visual description of how best to tackle knowledge creation and management.

Knowledge Management in Practice

Through outlining what knowledge management is and also the processes which can be implemented in an effort to create and manage knowledge, this section seeks to highlight where knowledge management has been implemented giving examples of organisations.

A major global organisation, which has perused knowledge management over several decades, almost since it’s emergence is KPMG. Alavi (1997) developed a case study in that addressed the initial design and development of KPMG’s U.S. knowledge management system, ‘‘K-Web.’’. Furthermore, O’Leary (2008) examined KPMG’s efforts leading to their first global knowledge management system, ‘‘K-World.’’ More recently (Armacost 2011, Cited in O’Leary 2016) stated that the overall objective of knowledge management for KPMG was ‘‘to harness the knowledge of our people to help them deliver and create value for our clients”. He also stated that indicated that the knowledge management system was designed to accomplish eight sub-objectives;

1) Make it easier for users to find what they need.
2) Speed the response time for client inquiries and development of proposals
3) Decrease duplication of investments in knowledge by member firms.
4) Improve the overall experience with using knowledge management.
5) Broaden the access to collective expertise.
6) Help deliver deeper forward thinking insights.
7) Foster stronger client relationships and more effective service delivery.
8) Help drive profitable growth across member firms and practices

This research and the consequent objectives strongly illustrate KPMG’s long standing pursuit of knowledge and the great benefits it has not only for itself but also its customers.

Another example of KM in practice can be seen in the NHS at the Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust (Rowley, 2013). In their report titled ‘Knowledge Management Strategy 2013-2017 “Promoting the management & use of knowledge for the best patient care”. They outline their vision which is to harness the body of knowledge and exploit it at point of need so that the right information will be available to the right people in the right format at the right time. They believe that the effective management of knowledge and information is essential for the provision in the best patient care.
Their strategy has five key strategic objectives:
1) To improve the quality and safety of patient care
2) To contribute to the creation of a reflective learning culture
3) To provide and promote access to the knowledge content base using appropriate technology
4) To provide our staff and stakeholders with the facilities and skills to find, share, evaluate, organise and use knowledge and undertake research
5) To reduce variation in clinical practice and improve communication between care settings through evidence based care pathways.

They also state how they are going to implement and deliver these objectives

• Focus on getting information into clinical teams and areas
• Ensure staff have access to the knowledge base that provides right information atthe right time
• Work collaboratively with higher education and the public sector
• Seek out opportunities to develop pathways that can streamline services, share knowledge and reduce variation
• Provide training to staff to utilise and maximise access to information at the point of care.
• Assist in the creation of document management systems to enable effective retrieval of core documents, guidelines and policies.

Taking a close look at their delivery plan there is some distinct relations with the SECI model. The first bullet point is socialisation, acquiring the knowledge. The second bullet point refers to externalisation, expressing the knowledge between employees. The third and fourth bullet point is combination, the sharing of knowledge. Finally, the fifth bullet point is internalisation, embodying the knowledge in to practice.

Again, it can be seen that knowledge management is a key resource for this department of the NHS and no doubt it is also implemented across other departments.

Conclusion

So, as stated at the beginning, the fundamental aim of this wiki was to establish whether Knowledge Management is a new trend in management? Thus, to conclude I shall break down the question into three sections;

1) Is it New? – Yes, if we consider the length of time management has been not only a practice but a discipline, stretching back all the way to Taylors theory of scientific management (Taylor, 1911) over a hundred years ago, then it is clear to see that knowledge management has only emerged in more recent times. Making it a young concept, one which still has the potential to be adapted and grow as time moves forward

2) Is it a Trend? – If we use the general definition given in the oxford dictionary for trend which is ‘A general direction in which something is developing or changing’ then it can be strongly argued that knowledge management is a trend. For example this wiki alone has shown not only how concepts have been developed upon by theorists but has also shown how organisations across different sectors and industries such as the financial and healthcare industries illustrated. No two industries could be so different yet they have been implementing knowledge management practices. The rapid up rise in not only large corporate organisation implementing knowledge management but also SME’s is another factor that strengthens the fact that this is trend.

3) Is it Management? – Regardless of the topic title including the word management, knowledge management in organisations is clearly management. If we reflect on the information provided in this wiki, not only can you see a considerable amount of literature regarding the subject itself but the content of the literature itself shows the detail in which academics are creating theories specifically to shape organisations to be able to facilitate KM. For example, Grant (1996) KBV theory is one which really lays the foundations of how an organisation can become, through the correct management, more competitive, using knowledge as an invaluable resource. Furthermore, the knowledge creation models created by Nonaka and Konno (1998) and Boisot (1998) give management a visual representation of the process in which they must go through in order to create and manage knowledge. Once again, allowing organisations to create new knowledge which they can use to their advantage.

Thus, we can conclude that knowledge management is a new trend in management, one which is becoming more prevalent as we move forward in this age of information and globalisation.

References

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